Sena announces 21 candidates, drops MP who slapped AI employee

By

-

March 22, 2019

The Shiv Sena Friday declared its first list of 21 candidates in Maharashtra for next month’s Lok Sabha polls, retaining 17 sitting MPs and denying ticket to the lawmaker who had allegedly slapped an Air India employee in 2017.

Ravindra Gaikwad, the 59-year-old MP from Osmanabad constituency, had hit an Air India staffer with a slipper at the IGI Airport in New Delhi and then openly boasted about it.

The Sena replaced Gaikwad, who briefly faced a travel ban by airlines for his act, with Omraje Nimbalkar in Osmanabad in central Maharashtra.

Another Sena Member of Parliament, Rajan Vichare, who was accused of force-feeding a canteen employee on fast during Ramzan in 2014, has been fielded again from Thane.

As per the pre-poll alliance sealed by the BJP and the Shiv Sena, the former will contest on 25 seats and the latter on 23 out of the Lok Sabha 48 constituencies in Maharashtra.

Of these 23 seats, the Uddhav Thackeray-led party announced candidates on 21, leaving out two constituencies — Palghar and Satara — in the first list.

Currently, the Palghar seat adjoining Mumbai has a BJP MP, but the Sena has staked its claim to the constituency.

“We will announce the names of remaining candidates by Sunday,” senior Sena leader and Maharashtra minister Subhash Desai told reporters here after releasing the list.

The constituency-wise list of Sena candidates: South Mumbai-Arvind Sawant; South Central Mumbai-Rahul Shewale; Mumbai North West-Gajanan Kirtikar; Kalyan-Shrikant Shinde; Raigad-Anant Gite; Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg seat-Vinayak Raut; Kolhapur-Sanjay Mandlik; Hatkanangle-Dhairyasheel Mane; Nashik-Hemant Godse; Shirdi-Sadashiv Lokhande; Shirur-Shivajirao Adhalrao Patil; Aurangabad-Chandrakant Khaire; Yavatmal Washim-Bhawana Gawli; Buldana-Prataprao Jadhav; Ramtek-Kripal Tumane; Amravati-Anandrao Adsul; Parbhani-Sanjay Jadhav; Maval-Shrirang Barne; Hingoli-Hemant Patil, Osmanabad-Omraje Nimbalkar and Thane-Rajan Vichare.

Months after his election in 2014, Vichare had courted controversy by forcefully feeding a canteen employee who was observing Ramzan fast in Maharashtra Sadan in New Delhi.

The Sena had defended Vichare and his associates involved in the incident, saying they did not know the canteen employee was a Muslim and was observing Ramzan fast.

The party had clarified Vichare and others were irked over poor quality of food being served in the canteen.

In 2014, the Sena had contested on 20 Lok Sabha seats in the state and won 18.

Meanwhile, former NCP legislator and labour leader Narendra Patil called on Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray at his residence ‘Matoshree’ here.

According to a Sena source, the party may field Patil, who is also a prominent Maratha community leader, from Satara, a stronghold of the NCP.

The Sharad Pawar-led party has already renominated its sitting MP Udayanraje Bhosale from Satara in western Maharashtra.

NCP’ Bharati Pawar, Congress’ Pravin Chheda join BJP

By

Web Team

-

March 22, 2019

In another setback to the NCP ahead of next month’s polling, its state unit vice president Bharti Pawar on Friday joined the BJP, while Congress leader Pravin Chheda also returned to ruling party.

The two leaders joined the BJP in the presence of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and other senior functionaries of the party.

Pawar had unsuccessfully contested the 2014 Lok Sabha polls from Dindori constituency against BJP’s Harishchandra Chavan.

Chheda, a three-term Corporator in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), had quit the BJP to join the Congress seven years ago reportedly due to his differences with the then local MLA Prakash Mehta, currently a minister in the Maharashtra government.

Speaking on the occasion, Fadnavis claimed that BJP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Kakade will continue to be in the party. His remark comes in the wake of reports that Kakade was unhappy with the BJP and that he was likely to join the Congress.

Without naming the opposition parties, Fadnavis slammed those “who speak the language of Pakistan and questioned the surgical strike” post Pulwama terror attack.

Earlier this week, son of NCP MP Vijaysinh Mohite-Patil, Ranjitsinh, had joined the BJP.

Polling will be held in Maharashtra in four phases next month.

Pawar said that she was impressed by the developmental works carried out across the country and in Maharashtra under the leaderships of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Fadnavis respectively.

“Their works over the past five years have inspired me to join the BJP. I will work for the uplift of the poor and tribal,” she added.

Expressing satisfaction on his return to the BJP fold, Chheda said that he was impressed by the development works being carried out by the BJP governments.

He claimed that the Congress had offered him candidature from the Mumbai North East seat, but he ignored the offer and came back to the BJP instead.

“I will play the role the party wants me to play now,” Chheda added.

Fadnavis said that leaders and workers doing good job in other parties were joining the BJP trusting Modi’s performance and schemes being carried out by the Centre for the poor and farmers.

Sharad Pawar, Mayawati not contesting indication of NDA win: Shiv Sena

By

Web Team

-

March 22, 2019

NCP chief Sharad Pawar and BSP president Mayawati’s opting out of the Lok Sabha polls is a clear indication of a ceratin victory for the NDA, the Shiv Sena said on Friday.

It also claimed that Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra would spoil the game for the SP-BSP alliance in Uttar Pradesh, reasoning the vote bank of the Congress and Mayawati is similar.

In an editorial in its mouthpiece ‘Saamana’, the NDA constituent said Pawar and Mayawati not contesting was a sign that the road was clear for Narendra Modi to return victorious as the Prime Minister.

“Along with Sharad Pawar, Mayawati too has decided not to contest Lok Sabha polls, the importance of which is that they are out of the Prime Ministerial race,” the Sena editorial said.

Quoting Mayawati, it said that she wants to campaign for her party’s candidates across the country, hence she chose not to contest herself.

However, the editorial reasoned, the BSP has presence only in Uttar Pradesh, and, therefore, the decision to opt out meant she was running way from a fight.

Pawar has sought a similar escape route from Madha Lok Sabha constituency, it claimed.

Taking a dig at the NCP chief, the Sena said that Pawar is trying to unite the entire Opposition but couldn’t bring his own family and party members on the same page and therefore had to opt out.

On Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, it said, “In 2014, Dalits and Yadavs had voted heavily for Modi and not a single candidate of Mayawati could win. This scare haunts her even today. Priyanka’s ‘tourism’ visits are getting good response and there is a fear in Mayawati that the Congress leader will spoil her prospects from wherever she decides to contest,” it said.

The editorial went on to claim that Mayawati’s prime fear is the Congress and not BJP and one of the reasons for her not contesting is Priyanka’s foray in active politics.

“Neither Sharad Pawar nor Mayawati is contesting. Therefore, two people who dreamt of being Prime Minister are no more contenders. This proves the mettle of the NDA,” it said.

It’s a great shame: Danny Boyle on ‘Bond 25’ exit

By

Web Team

-

March 22, 2019

Director Danny Boyle has opened up about his exit from “Bond 25”, calling it a “great shame”.

The Oscar-winning filmmaker had in August last year dropped out of the project along with his frequent collaborator, screenwriter John Hodge, over “creative difference” with the producers. He was supposed to start shooting in December.

Boyle was replaced by “True Detective” and “Maniac” director Cary Joji Fukunaga on the film.

In a leading magazine’s May issue, the 62-year-old director said that he learned a lot about himself from his experience on the project.

“I work in partnership with writers and I am not prepared to break it up. We were working very, very well, but they didn’t want to go down that route with us. What John Hodge and I were doing, I thought, was really good. It wasn’t finished, but it could have been really good. You have to believe in your process and part of that is the partnership I have with a writer,” Boyle said.

“So we decided to part company, and it would be unfair to say what it was because I don’t know what Cary is going to do. I got a very nice message from him and I gave him my best wishes… It is just a great shame,” he added.

“Bond 25” will mark Craig’s fifth outing as famed British spy following “Casino Royale”, “Quantum of Solace”, “Skyfall” and “Spectre”.

Actor Ralph Fiennes, Naomie Harris and Ben Whishaw will also reprise their roles in the film.

French star Lea Seydoux, who played psychologist Madeleine Swann in Sam Mendes’ “Spectre”, is also returning. The film will release on April 8, 2020.

Emilia reveals she went through 2 life-threatening brain surgeries

By

Web Team

-

March 22, 2019

Actor Emilia Clarke has revealed that in the early years of “Game of Thrones” she suffered from two brain aneurysms that nearly took her life.

In an essay for a leading US daily which was published online on Thursday, Clarke said the health scares began soon after the success of the first season of the HBO epic-fantasy drama.

Clarke said just before she assumed her role as Daenerys Targaryen in 2011, she started feeling a “shooting, stabbing, constricting pain” in her head during a workout with her trainer.

“I immediately felt as though an elastic band was squeezing my brain. I tried to ignore the pain and push through it, but I just couldn’t. Somehow, almost crawling, I made it to the locker room. I reached the toilet, sank to my knees, and proceeded to be violently, voluminously ill. Meanwhile, the pain shooting, stabbing, constricting pain was getting worse. At some level, I knew what was happening: my brain was damaged.”

The actor was rushed to the hospital where she had an MRI scan that showed an aneurysm requiring brain surgery. The then-24-year-old actor underwent a two-week recovery period, during which she could not remember her name, a result of a condition called aphasia.

“I’d never experienced fear like that a sense of doom closing in. I could see my life ahead, and it wasn’t worth living. I am an actor; I need to remember my lines. Now I couldn’t recall my name,” Clarke said.

After recovering, Clarke returned to promote “GOT”, but soon discovered that she had another smaller aneurysm on the other side of her brain that could rupture any time.

Around the third season of the series, the actor visited the medical facility for regular brain scans and learned that the second aneurysm had doubled in size.

She had another surgery, but it did not go as successfully as the first one.

“When they woke me, I was screaming in pain. The procedure had failed. I had a massive bleed and the doctors made it plain that my chances of surviving were precarious if they didn’t operate again. This time they needed to access my brain in the old-fashioned way through my skull. And the operation had to happen immediately,” Clarke said.

“I looked as though I had been through a war more gruesome than any that Daenerys experienced. I emerged from the operation with a drain coming out of my head. Bits of my skull had been replaced by titanium,” she added.

The actor spent one month in the hospital, where she said she had “lost all hope.”

“I felt like a shell of myself. So much so that I now have a hard time remembering those dark days in much detail. My mind has blocked them out. But I do remember being convinced that I wasn’t going to live,” she said.

Several weeks after the surgery, Clarke was back to work promoting the series at the San Diego Comic-Con with her castmates.

She kept the news of her surgeries a secret until now, even denying a National Enquirer story that ran six weeks after the procedure.

The actor has assured that since the second surgery, she is “100 per cent better”, and has created a charity for brain injury and stroke victims called SameYou.

Gully Boy’ gave us great push but we shouldn’t be dependent on it: DIVINE

By

Web Team

-

March 22, 2019

Zoya Akhtar’s “Gully Boy” brought Mumbai’s underground hip-hop scene to the mainstream and rapper DIVINE whose life, along with rapper Naezy, inspired the film says they should now make use of the recognition and not be “dependent” on it.

The film, headlined by Ranveer Singh, chronicled the story of the rise of a rapper from Dharavi.

“Gully Boy” emerged as one of the most critically-acclaimed films of the season and has helped put the spotlight on the hip-hop culture, which was hitherto ignored.

DIVINE says, thanks to the film, the artistes aren’t “alien anymore” and are now in the mainstream, with hip-hop reaching all corners of the country.

“The movie was a great push for us but we should not be dependent on the movie anymore. We should do our own thing. A mainstream movie came about us and now everybody knows about this scene in Mumbai.

“Now every city should be pushing and putting themselves out there because now there is an audience who is ready to listen,” DIVINE told an agency.

The film, written by Zoya and Reema Kagtiwith dialogues by Vijay Maurya opened first in Berlin before a theatrical release in India.

“Gully Boy” went on to become a huge success and put the spotlight on emerging rappers in the country, especially DIVINE.

Asked if he feels his art can get affected with so much attention, the rapper says, “No. It clearly depends on how you take it. The film was being made since three and half a years.

“It always got me excited, obviously, but in the back of my head, I knew I’m here to do music, give the people what I have. My life is still the same, only the love has been getting bigger.”

DIVINE, whose first ever live performances included a total audience of 10, with six being his friends, has reached a position where he has teamed up with different musicians to come out with a “collaborative” sound.

‘Delhi Crime’ shot with non-judgemental eye, says director Richie Mehta

By

Web Team

-

March 22, 2019

“Delhi Crime”, based on Nirbhaya case files, explores the 2012 heinous gangrape and murder from the viewpoint of the Delhi Police team that probed the incident, but Netflix’s new web series was shot with a non-judgemental eye, says director Richie Mehta.

The seven-part series, which started streaming on Friday, directed by the Indian-Canadian filmmaker follows the investigation to nab the six males who raped the 23-year-old physiotherapy intern on a cold December night in a moving bus in the national capital. She died of her grievous injuries 13 days later in a Singapore hospital.

Mehta said it was a family friend serving in Delhi Police who suggested him to make a film on the subject. He started the research in 2013 after a trial court convicted and gave death sentence to the four adult defendants.

After four years of research and writing, the director said he came up with a 170-page bible followed by 430-page script, wherein he has explored the perspective of “the people who were in the front lines”.

“I realised they have a point of view on these things that we don’t talk about. We had a very visceral reaction to this particular case and these are the people who are doing it every day. So why aren’t we talking to them and getting their points of view?” Mehta told agencies in an interview here.

The director, known for films like “Amal” and “Siddharth”, has not depicted the act of gangrape in the series neither in visuals nor audio.

“I was very clear from the beginning that I didn’t want to showcase the rape scene because I wanted the series to be about the procedure, not the crime,” he said.

Mehta said the team filmed the series as if they were a “bystander”, sneaking up to see and listen in to what was happening.

“We would take point of view shots, bystander shots. Sometimes we took long shots, people are walking down the hallway and we’re behind them or we are just a person listening in. This was part of the non-judgmentalness of it. The whole show was shot in that particular style.”

He said the only time he changed tack was when DCP (south district) Vartika Chaturvedi, played by Shefali Shah, gets Jai Singh, the main rapist, to confess.

“In rest of the scenes, you’re just sitting in the corner. The only time I broke that rule was when I needed to see both the people’s eyes, it was that moment – behind Vartika’s and Jai Singh’s shoulders. This was not a bystander thing anymore,” he said.

“Delhi Crime” season two is afoot and the director said the series will be back with same characters in “more or less the same rank” and a different crime.

Tata Power SED bags Rs 1,200 cr contract from Defence Ministry

By

Web Team

-

March 22, 2019

Tata Power Strategic Engineering Division (SED) has bagged a Rs 1,200 crore contract from the defence ministry for supply of ship-borne 3D Air Surveillance Radars.

Tata Power SED has signed a deal with the Ministry of Defence to supply 23 ship-borne 3D Air Surveillance Radars to the Indian Navy over the next 10 years, a Tata Power statement said on Friday.

The contract was signed under the Buy & Make (India) category of the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2013 that will be offering the Indian Navy a proven solution, with a production arrangement in India under Transfer of Technology (ToT).

The contract will be executed by Tata Power SED as the prime contractor with foreign OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) partner Indra Sistemas, Spain.

Tata Advanced Systems Ltd (TASL) has entered into a share purchase agreement with Tata Power to buy Tata Power SED, subject to regulatory and other approvals.

In November 2017, Tata Power SED had signed a contract with the defence ministry for supply of Portable Diver Detection Sonar (PDDS) for Indian Naval applications.

Tata Power is an integrated power company and together with its subsidiaries and jointly controlled entities, has an installed capacity of 10757 MW.

Govt extends IGST, compensation cess exemption under various export promotion plans

By

Web Team

-

March 22, 2019

Giving relief to exporters, the government has extended IGST (Integrated Goods and Service Tax) and compensation cess exemptions for goods procurement under certain export promotion schemes till March 2020.

These exemptions have been extended for exporters buying inputs domestically or importing for export purposes under export oriented unit (EOU) scheme, Export Promotion Capital Goods (EPCG) scheme and advance authorisation.

EPCG is an export promotion scheme under which an exporter can import a certain amount of capital goods at zero duty for upgrading technology related to exports.

On the other hand, advance authorisation is issued to allow duty-free import of inputs, which is physically incorporated in the export product.

The move was aimed at giving relief to exporters as they do not have to pay IGST at the initial point itself. In the GST regime, they have to pay the indirect tax and then seek a refund, which is a cumbersome process.

In a notification, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has said that exemption from integrated GST and compensation cess under advance authorisation scheme, EOU, and EPCG scheme of foreign trade policy 2015-20 “is extended up to March 31, 2020”.

During April-February of the current fiscal year, exports grew 8.85 per cent to USD 298.47 billion, while imports rose by 9.75 per cent to USD 464 billion.

The trade deficit has widened to USD 165.52 billion during the 11 months of the current fiscal from USD 148.55 billion compared to the year-ago period.

GVK Group co to acquire 12 cr shares in Mumbai airport for Rs 924 cr

By

Web Team

-

March 22, 2019

GVK Power & Infrastructure on Friday said that its step-down subsidiary GVK Airport Holdings will acquire 12 crore shares of Mumbai International Airport (MIAL) for Rs 924 crore from ACSA Global.

After completion of this 10 per cent stake buy from ACSA along with the earlier purchase of 13.5 per cent from Bidvest, GVK Group’s shareholding in MIAL will increase to 74 per cent from the existing 50.5 per cent, a company statement said.

“GVK Airport Holdings Ltd…has exercised it right, under Right of First Refusal in terms of the Shareholders Agreement dated April 4, 2006….to acquire 12 crore equity shares of MIAL, constituting 10 per cent of the total paid-up share capital of MIAL, from ACSA at the rate of Rs 77 per share,” it added.